Chicks on the horizon? (and how Java Sparrows inspired us)

DJ here.

This is a really quick one, but I noticed Birdlet dropping out of the old nesting box on the side of the house today, and there's really no reason for her to be in there unless she's fixing to have more chicks.

not my pic... those old ones are on archived media. Java Sparrows

I built that box back 30+ years ago. There were java rice birds which had pecked the screens out of the vent holes on our upper roof to create a java-rice-bird condo development, you could see a dozen little java faces sticking out the holes sometimes at once. Which was very cute and all, but in Maunawili anything that looks even ROUGHLY like a beehive quickly becomes a beehive. So the bees would chase the java sparrows out of one segment of the roof after another, and I'd have to remove them on a tall ladder, which I was never able to do without killing them. I hated that, but we couldn't really have our drywall ceiling sagging with honey and some night having 50lb of bees crashing through the ceiling to sting us.

So I installed tougher covers on the holes, evicting the java rice birds; but decided to see about making alternate nesting sites for them... so in about 5 minutes I took some rough lumber and a piece of left-over counter laminate and made what I thought would be a good birdhouse for rice birds.

They never cared for it. But over the years I'd notice from time to time a shama nesting there, though I didn't get to know them then, and didn't pay much attention. But that has seemingly become Birdlet's favorite place to nest now, for the cheepies, the fluffbutts, and the failed "cuties", which apparently hatched but didn't thrive. So she may be prepping to try again. I can't tell by the look on her face.

We saw Bird, Birdlet, and Tawny a fair bit today; but no exciting new exploits other than their just dropping by, Tawny coming in the house to lecture us and poop on things.

UPDATE: POK POK POK

Susie has told me I also need to relay a lizard anecdote from the day.

I was moving things around in the lower house today and on barging into the back room scared the pair of gold-dust daygeckos who ran off. These presumably were the ones I'd tried to train in that room a year and a half ago.  So as they were running off, I said "what, you don't want a worm?"

Well, BOTH of the lizards stopped running up the wall and behind the curtains and raised their bodies down to stare at me... and they raced each other back toward me. Having not really expected that, I didn't actually have any worms for them. So I told them to wait (they grok that) and went and found some in Susie's mealworm farm. Once I got back they each ran to the arm of the chair closest to me and begged for their mealworms, taking them out of my fingers with a strong tug, and running off giggling. I suppose, whatever a lizard giggle sounds like, we probably couldn't hear it.

But since I now need to find a picture, and can only just now find one, I need to explain it, and that leads to the story of why we no longer have a google robot in that room.

ultimately, I caught him in the act

One of those lizards discovered the touch-sensitive controls on the top of the "smart speaker", and it turns out a gecko's touch is more than sufficient to work it. So this gecko learned that it could make huge noises by moving back and forth between the "volume up" and "volume down" spots. Once on "volume up" it would get as loud as possible and go POK POK POK POK until the lizard got tired of that, which was seldom. We couldn't figure out what was happening for awhile since whenever we'd walk into the room the POK POK POK would suddenly stop, seemingly a ghostly manifestation of some sort. After a few days I opened the door really fast and saw the lizard scooting away right when the noise stopped.  Why the lizard liked that, who knows. Maybe it stimulated him or her in some way, it was pretty loud. But the only thing we were sure of what that the neighbors were not happy. They hated the POK POK POK at all hours of the day or night and wanted it off. For awhile I tried taping cardboard to the top of the speaker, but the lizard would wedge under it and POK POK POK POK it would go again. So after the neighbors finally said STOP IT! I unplugged the speaker. So the magic box no longer works for that lizard. But it was one of the ones in my story today, so that's the connection.